This year our annual 16 day coastal cruise will be different than any other. We will be looking at this cruise through the eyes of prepping. Although our plan would be to sit it out in our home as long as possible, there may come a time that we will need to bug out. We will be prepared to spend some time as land lubbers but as soon as there is a weather window we bug out under sail. This is a great opportunity for us to consider all aspects of our cruising as if we really needed to survive for an extended period of time. We have survived a few weeks at a time in the past so the boat is well provisioned. No solar yet but should have that by next year. Solar will provide all the juice we need if we are careful. Through a preppers eye we shall see just how prepared we really are. The following are a few things will be focused on. Not necessarily in any order.
1. Food harvesting. fishing, crabbing, prawning, kelp, wild edible plants ect.
2. Cocktail hour
3. On Board sprouting.
4. Testing freeze dried foods
5. Cocktail hour
6. Maintaining our food harvesting equipment and spares.
7. Locating weatherproof anchorage with fresh water supply, and game.
8. Cocktail hour
9. Water purification experiments and cocktail hour.
10. Multiple alternative secure cache anchorages for fuels, food, and weapons.
11. Cocktail hour
12. On shore survival skills, fire making, bushcraft ect.
13. Pressure cooking to conserve propane.
14. Pre bugout preparation.
15. Long term self sufficiency at sea. Water collection, foul weather survival. If looting and civil unrest begins I want to be beyond the reach of small power boats. 75 miles out would be best. This would certainly depend on the time of year. It could be as simple as sailing a few hundred miles south to safety.
16. Cocktail hour.
17. Spare parts inventory, lubricants, ect. Beyond basic boat maintenance.
I know there are many things that need to be practiced that are not here but I am hoping there is always next year. I will post some of my thoughts upon our return.
Zz
I like cocktail hour, it maintains perspective. Actually a coastal bug out in a remote area would be likely to be highly successful. Very nice plan.
Heres a guy that knows what its about. Your my kind of Prepper. Desolation Sound on a case of Scotch!
Destination Unknown... not for the tame. 😮 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGyDd_3Eoug
After 17 days of practicing bugging out to the coastal waters here are some of our thoughts. Long term living on board in the coastal waters is totally possible with some well thought out caches of propane, diesel fuel and other supplies.
As always the most rewarding part of our cruises is the harvesting of fresh seafood. The crabbing was good this year. We thought we would pretend we had no food on board for the first few meals just to see how we would do. We started with a meal of pan fried rock cod on a bed of sea asparagus. Then we used the heads for bait in the traps. We quickly had enough legal crab to survive for several days.
We keep a few pounds of commercial prawn bait on board for our prawn traps. Once you get a good catch of prawns you can use the heads for crab bait. I think the cycle is sustainable. Oh cat food makes good prawn bait too.
Salmon fishing was good and they are easily taken with jigging lures like Zingers. We did not try for halibut but we know of a few good spots. We can only store so much food on board.
We located good anchorages with good water source in case our 80 gallons is not enough and we need to take on water. I would hesitate to load my tanks with stream or lake water but if you had to you could and then just purify it through the Berkey system. In the winter we could fill our tanks with captured rain water.
We visited two abandoned first nations settlements and could easily imagine the children playing outside the long houses and in one spot the last of the totems was lying on the ground. You could still make out the carvings even in their rotten state. It’s easy to imagine the incredible civilizations that thrived in these places for thousands of years. These places always awaken an inner spirit in me. This time more so. As I stood on the lands of the first preppers it made me think about us modern day preppers and why we do what we do. For me I think that our spirits are connected in some way. Or, maybe it was the Mojitos we made from the wild spearmint we found next to the trail.
Sounds pretty awesome/
Wow! A 17 day practice is very effective. You are luckier than most of us because you know that your plan works. I am sure that you also leant many things that will let you fine tune you plan for the future. Congratulations on developing, preparing and executing a workable plan.
Hi, glad to hear your practice went well.
There are alot of people prepping out here that if they had to actually live the life would they beable to and for how long? Myself included. We are so used to our pampered life style that when it is suddenly taken from us the shock would be incredible, especially for children. My granddaughter is up here and unless we are always busy doing recreation activities or she watches TV or play video games the next words out of her mouth is "I'm bored" or "this is too hard". When I grew up on the farm we were always busy puttering around and when the work was done....as if it ever was....we would make our own activities. Exploring the woods, fishing, horse back riding, playing with the animals on the farm. We were never Bored! or though what we did was too hard, we accepted the challenged.
Also our eating habits....60%+ are over weight and 25% of them is orbidly obese....then to have to change to the food that nature supplies and live on what is put away and grow...no chemical treats....can you imagine the withdraw. Plus have to do the labour to produce what you need. Alot of people are allegic to exercise/physical labour. Hey I'm with them, the difference is I know I can go back to how I used to live my life.
OK off my soap box.
Wow! A 17 day practice is very effective. You are luckier than most of us because you know that your plan works. I am sure that you also leant many things that will let you fine tune you plan for the future. Congratulations on developing, preparing and executing a workable plan.
Yes we learned a great deal and found some things that needed improvement and some we had not considered. For example. Colder months of the year would put a huge strain on our fuel supplies trying to keep warm. I am researching a safe wood fuel heating system that could be quickly brought in to play if needed. There is no shortage of wood available in our preferred bugout locations. With this in place we could really live comfortably for a very long time.
Two inflatable kayaks would allow us to harvest seafood without using gas in our tender. They are more nimble than rowing the dingy around and would cut down on the gas going through the outboard on the dinghy. And, properly equipped we could travel long distances close to shore if there was a need to bugout from the boat. I would probably have fun in them anytime. I am considering the Advanced Elements Expedition. If anyone has any experience with inflatable kayaks your input would be most appreciated.
This was an eye opening experience. I hope I just get to use the yacht for pleasure. But will continue to get her ready for anything.
Thank you for your reply.
Zz
Hi, glad to hear your practice went well.
There are alot of people prepping out here that if they had to actually live the life would they beable to and for how long? Myself included. We are so used to our pampered life style that when it is suddenly taken from us the shock would be incredible, especially for children. My granddaughter is up here and unless we are always busy doing recreation activities or she watches TV or play video games the next words out of her mouth is "I'm bored" or "this is too hard". When I grew up on the farm we were always busy puttering around and when the work was done....as if it ever was....we would make our own activities. Exploring the woods, fishing, horse back riding, playing with the animals on the farm. We were never Bored! or though what we did was too hard, we accepted the challenged.
Also our eating habits....60%+ are over weight and 25% of them is orbidly obese....then to have to change to the food that nature supplies and live on what is put away and grow...no chemical treats....can you imagine the withdraw. Plus have to do the labour to produce what you need. Alot of people are allegic to exercise/physical labour. Hey I'm with them, the difference is I know I can go back to how I used to live my life.
OK off my soap box.
Ahh the good old days. I worry about our children's imagination sometimes. When I was a kid I had food, a few toys, and my imagination. Now the children play video games based on the developers imagination. Generation gap? I just don't know. These are strange times.
Thank you for your reply and I too feel your pain.
Zz